Murder charges have been dropped against the Zimbabwean guerrilla-war veteran
alleged to have shot dead a white farmer.

Daniel Chitekuteku, 41, has
been released from custody after charges were dropped for lack of
evidence.

David Stevens was the first of six white farmers killed in more
than nine months since President Robert Mugabe began his attempt to seize
white-owned land.

Independent Online reports Chitekuteku's release was
confirmed by Fungai Nyahunzvi, magistrate's court prosecutor in the town of
Marondera, about 75km east of Harare, where the alleged killer was being
held.

Stevens, 48, was abducted from his farm, Arizona, by a mob of
veterans in the Macheke area near Marondera on April 15.

Chitekuteku was
arrested in September after a witness claimed to have seen him shoot
Stevens.

The Deputy Minister of
Home Affairs, Rugare Gumbo, last week told Parliament it was sad that blind
University of Zimbabwe students had been caught in the crossfire during
demonstrations by students in solidarity with their lecturers striking for
better pay.

Gumbo was replying to a
question from the MDC's Nomalanga Khumalo (Umzingwane), who had asked if it was
police procedure to use force or teargas to quell student disturbances,
especially if blind students were involved. A number of blind students were
beaten up by the riot squad during student demonstrations last month. Two spent
the night outside their shattered hostels as a result. "It is obviously not
police procedure to use force to quell any disturbances," said Gumbo. "In this
particular case, the police were obviously forced to use teargas. It's
unfortunate that disabled people were caught in the crossfire. If people behave
in an unruly manner to disturb peace, we will be left with no choice." Asked
whether it was right to use the army to deal with public demonstrations, Gumbo
said the army would always be called in when the police saw that there was
potential for the situation to deteriorate into chaos. The use of the army
to assist the police was nothing new in the world, as the United States of
America did it when it was confronted by potentially volatile situations, said
Gumbo. "I would want to repeat that if there were disabled people who were
caught in the cross fire, that is regrettable," he said. Meanwhile, the
Leader of the House, Patrick Chinamasa, told Parliament that 20 percent of the
land being acquired for resettlement purposes would be reserved for war
veterans, 10 percent for war collaborators, 10 percent for political detainees
and restrictees with the remaining 60 percent being given to the landless
peasants. The government wants to acquire five million hectares from the
commercial farmers. "The MDC is not doing their members any good by telling
them not to participate in the resettlement programme," said Chinamasa. "The
government is in control regardless of the propaganda that we are losing. People
are being given land as we sit here, people are being given land at a reasonable
pace."

About 900 villagers from
Mvuma and Chirumhanzu who were allocated land onSebakwe North Farm under the
government's fast-track resettlementprogramme this year have allegedly been
kicked out by war veterans andbusiness people. The 65 000-hectare farm is
part of the Central Estates ofMvuma.

In a petition sent to the
Minister of Local Government, Public Works andNational Housing Ignatius
Chombo last week, the villagers accused theprovincial land committee,
chaired by governor Cephas Msipa of hijackingthe land redistribution
programme to benefit war veterans, politicians andbusiness people in and
outside the province.A spokesperson for the war veterans, Lovemore Mudondo,
denied the charge.He said: "It is not true that war veterans have hijacked
the villagers'initiative." He would not elaborate.The villagers claimed
they were the first to be resettled on the farm inAugust following an
agreement with the farm owner, Nick Van Hoogstratenand
Msipa.

Brian Hungwe THE Speaker of
parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa is seeking legal advice on how to deal with MDC
parliamentarian Evelyn Masaiti for suing President Robert Mugabe in the US over
political crimes committed in the run-up to the June 24-25 election.

Legal analysts however dismissed Mungangwa’s moves as an “exercise in
futility” as Masaiti had committed no wrong.

Mnangagwa said if the MDC
MP had a case to answer, parliament would go through “the normal procedures” and
decide what action to take against her. “I have asked for legal opinion on
whether it is permissible for a member to sue in another jurisdiction his or her
head of state,” Mnangagwa said, adding he had consulted the legal counsel to
parliament on the issue.

Government is increasingly laggering itself
from reality and looking for scapegoats to redirect attention from pressing
economic problems on the ground.

Minister of Justice Patrick Chinamasa
recently told parliament government was also looking at the US Mugabe suit to
determine what course of action to take against the complainants, and the MPs
who supported the Zimbabwe Democracy Bill.

Targeted was Masaiti,
together with other four Zimbabweans who lost their relatives as a result of the
political violence mostly orchestrated by the ruling party.

Parliamentary sources said government did not take kindly to MPs who
campaigned for the Zimbabwe Democracy Bill that sought to bring sanctions
against the country for not upholding democratic values, and was looking at “how
to deal with them”.

Legal experts described moves by Chinamasa and
Mnangagwa as a “wild goose chase” that would not bear anything.

Advocate
Edith Mushore told the Independent that parliament had no legal basis to deprive
Masaiti of her right to sue in her individual capacity, anyone for deeds done to
either herself or relative.

“Everyone is entitled to sue for damages
arising out of the wrongful death of a relative, if it has been established that
that person caused the deceased’s wrongful death,” Mushore said.

She
said parliamentarians were accountable to their constituencies, the executive
and the judiciary.

“That must not in any way be confused with an
individual’s right to sue in her individual capacity,” Mushore said.

“What possible right has parliament to interfere with Masaiti’s personal
right? Are you inferring that Masaiti be deprived of protection of her legal
right simply because she was voted into parliament? It defies logic,” she said.

UZ law lecturer Lovemore Madhuku described the moves as political and an
attempt by Zanu PF to expel Masaiti from parlia- ment so as to create another
by-election in Muta- sa, a rural constituency that she won. “There is no law
against what Masaiti did,” Madhuku said.

He said parliament had
jurisdiction to discipline its own members for conduct which it deemed
detrimental to the interests of parliament. “Whenever you are acting within
the law, it will be wrong for parliament to proceed against a member who is
merely exercising his/her right,” Madhuku said.

Prominent lawyer
Sternford Moyo of Scanlen and Holderness, said it was “certainly not an offence
to institute legal action where you feel you have got a case”, even in foreign
courts.

“In general, a person who feels that he has a case is entitled
to approach and institute litigation,” he said.

“Apart from an order of
costs, where the litigant errs for taking his or her case in a forum that does
not have jurisdiction, I cannot think of any penalty likely to be imposed on the
litigant for instituting legal action. “The act itself is not
objectionable,” Moyo said. “A head of state enjoys immunity before the courts of
the country he is visiting unless the act in question is purely commercial.

“That objection is taken before the court itself and is determined by
the court where the litigant errs in taking action in a forum that does not have
jurisdiction.”

Mnangagwa said when members of parliament took the oath
of office in terms of parliament’s standing orders, they took an oath to the
state, which was personified in the president and indicated that they would
respect and observe its principles.

Dumisani
Muleya INTERNATIONAL pressure is mounting on the
beleaguered President Mugabe to resolve the deteriorating land and economic
situation in the country to preclude an implosion of great proportions in
Zimbabwe.

Yesterday South African President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian
leader Olusegun Obasanjo were in the country to engage Mugabe on the situation.
The two leaders are understood to have nudged Mugabe in their private meeting to
confront the crisis in a manner that would not precipitate collapse. They
promised to offer a helping hand to their besieged counterpart.

The
meeting by the three heads of state coincided with the visit to Zimbabwe by
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) boss Mark Malloch Brown.

After the heads of state meeting at State House, Obasanjo said in a
press briefing Zimbabwe should follow the letter of the law in executing the
land reform programme currently bogged down in the courts.

“What I think
Zimbabwe should do is to strictly follow the law that is already in place for
the resolution of this problem,” Obasanjo said.

He was responding to a
question on what Zimbabwe should do to resolve the land crisis.

Asked
about Obasanjo’s statement after the press briefing, Foreign Affairs minister
Stan Mudenge said: “That’s what we have said and we will follow our laws. That’s
exactly what we are doing.”

The Nigerian leader’s statement comes at a
time when Malloch Brown is making a last ditch effort to save the land
redistribution exercise which is reeling from a severe cash crunch.

Malloch Brown is expected to meet President Mugabe today to discuss the
way forward on the land reform problem. The UNDP is playing the role of broker
between international donors and Zimbabwe. Donors are with- holding money on
land reform in protest against arbitrary measures adopted by Harare.

Malloch Brown began his talks with senior government officials in his
quest to rescue Zimbabwe out of isolation from international financiers over
land reform.

Malloch Brown, a special envoy of the United Nations
secretary-general Kofi Annan, is today expected to meet President Mugabe in what
is expected to be the prime of the international effort to negotiate the halting
of the infamous fast-track land resettlement programme. Malloch Brown is also
expected to meet with representatives of the Commercial Farmers Union and other
farming organisations to hear their representations on the land reform
programme.

“I hope I can help put in motion a broader process to re-open
dialogue between all stakeholders leading to the implementation of an
internationally supported land reform programme,” he said in a statement issued
by the UN information office last night.

Obasanjo said the leaders
during the two-and-a- half hour meeting discussed southern African and West
African regional issues. These include the Congo war and multi-lateral peace
initiatives on it. The situation in the Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone as well as
other trouble spots in that region were examined.

“President Mbeki gave
a run-down on the situation in the southern Africa region as a whole,” said
Obasanjo. Mbeki did not speak at the press briefing.

Zimbabwean
officials yesterday tried to rein in speculation on the visit by the two leaders
with presidential spokesman George Charamba saying the leaders had come to
express their solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe. At the end of the
meeting Obasanjo said he was available to mediate in the land row between Harare
and London.

Western diplomatic sources have maintained that they would
only support a land reform process that was transparent and based to a large
extent on what was agreed at the donors conference in 1998.

The sources
said Malloch Brown comes to Harare having done his homework after a visit to
European capitals last week.

“He is very clear on what the European
Union expects Mugabe to do before the donors come back to Harare,” said a
Western Diplomat.

The position of the European Union is that “we are
fully behind the UNDP effort to find a solution to the deadlock”.

The EU
head of delegation in Zimbabwe Asger Pilegaard reaffirmed Europe’s conditions
before the resumption of aid.

“The EU has always been part of the land
reform programme but we cannot support the fast track programme,” said
Pilegaard.

“Zimbabwe has to go back to the principles of the 1998 land
conference. We are anxiously waiting for the outcome of the meeting and I hope
it will bring change to the present scenario,” he said.

Dumisani
Muleya REGIONAL ministers of defence and
security last week moved to drastically clip President Mugabe’s powers in the
Southern African Development Community’s (Sadc) Organ on Politics, Defence and
Security, the Zimbabwe Independent has established.

The ministers, who
met in Harare on Thursday last week to discuss the fate of the contentious Sadc
offshoot, recommended to Mugabe — the current chair of the organ — that the
agency be attached to Sadc’s structures and not function as an autonomous body.

Diplomatic sources who attended the meeting said Foreign Affairs
minister, Stan Mudenge, tried in vain to prolong debate on the issue in a bid to
thwart the 14-member bloc’s efforts to curtail Mugabe’s powers. Mudenge suffered
a diplomatic coup in the process, the sources said.

The ministers
approved the Piggs Peak Draft on the proposed structures and operations of the
organ before forwarding the document to Mugabe. The draft was previously
discussed at a ministerial meeting in Swaziland on May 26.

“President
Mugabe will now have to study the document and then put it to his Sadc
counterparts,” a diplomatic source said.

“Sadc leaders will then meet to
either adopt, amend, or reject the new structures and modus operandi of the
organ,” said the source.

The status of the organ has been in dispute
since Zimbabwe first proposed it as a replacement of the Frontline States in
Windhoek in 1994. While Sadc heads of state and government agreed in the
Gaborone Communique of June 28, 1996 to establish the agency, its draft protocol
had not been ratified, depriving it of legal mandate.

Mugabe has been
accused by his Sadc counterparts of hijacking the organ to pursue an aggressive
interventionist policy in the region. Two years ago, he clashed over the issue
with former South African President Nelson Mandela when the latter was Sadc
chair. Mandela wanted Mugabe, as the chair of the organ, to report to him
because he was chair of the Sadc summit, the supreme congregation of the
regional grouping. Mugabe rejected the idea although Mandela’s argument has now
virtually won the day.

“President Mugabe has abused the organ before.
For instance, he used it to intervene in the Congo war without first securing
the Sadc summit’s approval,” one diplomat said.

“Mugabe convened a
regional ministerial meeting in Harare in 1998 to discuss the Congo situation
and after that he claimed Sadc had agreed to send troops to the Congo. In actual
fact it had not. His decision had to be regularised later by the summit after
skirmishes with Mandela,” the diplomat noted.

Sadc summits held in
Blantyre, Maputo, Port Louis and Windhoek discussed the question of the organ
but failed to make progress. Regional leaders had been waiting for
recommendations from ministers on how to resolve

THE Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) said yesterday its diplomatic initiative to lobby
Southern African Development Community (Sadc) states achieved another major
success last week after Morgan Tsvangirai held high-level talks with senior
leaders of the Frelimo government of Mozambique and the official opposition,
Renamo.

The MDC leader said that
his separate meetings in South Africa with Almerino Manhengo, the Mozambican
Minister for National Security in President Joacquim Chissano's Office, and
Afonso Dhlakama, leader of Renamo, had been facilitated by the South African
government of President Thabo Mbeki. A spokesman for the Mozambican High
Commission in Harare said yesterday the embassy was "not aware" of Tsvangirai's
meeting with Manhengo and referred questions to the Foreign Ministry in Maputo
where an official, who declined to be identified, would not confirm or deny that
the meeting took place. The South African High Commissioner, Jeremiah Ndou,
said Tsvangirai was the leader of the MDC and travelled in and out of South
Africa on private business which had nothing to do with the South African
government. He said his government had no business "involving itself in his
private business", which the meeting with the Mozambicans was. Tsvangirai
said the South African and Mozambican governments had briefed President Mugabe
on his meetings with Manhengo and Dhlakama. He said: "The meetings were with
the full knowledge of the South African government and Mugabe himself. Part of
our initiative in the Sadc region is to meet all the political parties. The
meeting with Dhlakama, which is being portrayed by Zanu PF as a clandestine one
between the MDC and Renamo, was not clandestine at all." The Minister of
State for Information and Publicity in the President's Office, Jonathan Moyo,
and his senior officials were not immediately available to comment.
Tsvangirai was accompanied to the meetings by the national chairman of the
MDC, Isaac Matongo. He said the meetings were part of a diplomatic campaign by
the MDC to engage Sadc leaders in dialogue on the political and economic
situation in Zimbabwe. He said: "This is not the end of the story. We intend
to go to South Africa, Zambia and all the Sadc states. The initiative is having
a positive effect. We are carrying the message of the MDC and removing
stereotypes and perceptions created by Zanu PF propaganda." In October
Tsvangirai led a four-member MDC delegation to Botswana where they held official
talks with top ministers in President Festus Mogae's Cabinet, including
representatives of opposition parties and human rights groups. He said: "We
have stated before that we want to engage all the governments and civic society
in the region and, in this case, the Mozambican government facilitated this
meeting. We met confidentially with the representatives of the Mozambican
government with the approval of the Zimbabwe government." On his meeting
with Dhlakama whose Renamo fought a 15-year war against the government until
peace was reached in 1992, Tsvangirai said he had discussed with him the
necessity of avoiding another bloody conflict in Mozambique. He said: "My
position to Dhlakama was that we do not want any war in the region. We want to
see the region stable so that the economy can improve and the people can
prosper. "He agreed with me and assured me that he was not in any way
contemplating going to war. But he complained that the democratic options were
being closed to him by the Chissano government. I pointed out to him our
disapproval of any destabilisation in the region and recommended to him the
democratic path we are following in Zimbabwe." Tsvangirai said the
Mozambican government had been "quite appreciative" of his discussions with
Dhlakama. He said: "It is not for me to defend the record of Renamo, but it
is up to the people of Mozambique to choose which political parties they want in
Parliament. Renamo is a political factor in Mozambique which cannot be ignored.
The Mozambique government appreciates my role in impressing on Renamo to desist
from any resumption of war in Mozambique for the good of the region."

WHEN Dr Ignatius Chombo told people to
resettle themselves before the Zimbabwean rainy season began, he was admitting
that the government's ill-considered "fast track resettlement" scheme has been a
dismal failure.

He was also being grossly
irresponsible.

Dr Chombo, who is the local government
minister and chairman of a task force on resettlement, admitted that government
lacked the resources to undertake orderly resettlement in the weeks remaining
before the rains begin. "We'll have to attend to that later," he said, "Go ahead
and resettle yourselves in time for the rains."

Well, yes. After eight months of terror
and tyranny, after eight months of empty promises, it turns out that government
had no plans to resettle anyone in the first place. Had these plans existed,
orderly resettlement, even if ill-considered, would have been a possibility. As
it is, no plans exist - or that's what Chombo's statement seems to
suggest.

Technical staff are not available,
transport has not been provided and people have not been selected - except, of
course, the few thousand alleged war veterans who're to be allowed to take
whatever suits them. If that's what government planning has come to in Zimbabwe,
it's little wonder that most people believe the ZANU-PF has run its
course.

But Chombo's statement is unlikely to
have impressed many people. Opinion in the communal areas, long held to be
ZANU-PF's heart land, has turned against the ruling party. The reason is simple
enough: when President Mugabe gave war veterans precedent over communal farmers
he alienated his own constituency. In a nation where the majority of people were
born after Mugabe won independence, or were too young to remember the war,
Mugabe's antics can only lose him friends. Yes, the people say, the war vets may
have suffered for us, but that was 20 years ago - and now we're all
suffering.

And suffering they are. Advising people
to take whatever suits them is one thing, but if they can't afford to buy the
seed and fertilizer they'll need in the next couple of weeks, an utterly
pointless exercise becomes an absurdity. Seed sales are down - drastically. This
is partly due to the cost of seed and partly due to a complete loss of faith in
the Grain Marketing Board (GMB). But both of those are just symptoms; the people
of Zimbabwe understand that the cause of those symptoms lies with ZANU-PF's
gross mismanagement of the economy. Rampant corruption, a misguided,
greed-fuelled war in the Congo and a knuckle headed refusal to bow to the
inevitable advent of multi-party democracy are the reasons that Zimbabwe is in
the doldrums - and that's before one even considers the calamitous effect,
understood by all, of Mugabe's fatuous land seizure plans.

Still, Chombo has chosen his own
destiny. There are reformists within the ruling party and, even if they're a
little too shy to make themselves known, Dr Chombo has shown that he sees a
future in aligning himself with the president. Fortunately for Zimbabwe, but
unfortunately for Chombo, almost the entire country thinks that reform is long
overdue - and this means that Chombo's views belong to an almost insignificant
minority.

It will be interesting to see how the
land grabbers respond.

Already the country has seen a renewed
surge of violence from the hard core party faithful. The ultimate lunacy will
come when the party forces people to resettle themselves - or else. There are
already signs that this is a possibility. No doubt the feckless party propaganda
machine will present this as a popular uprising of land hungry peasants - and
doubtless no one will believe it.

That's because no one believes
ZANU-PF's hard core any longer. Whether it is the president himself or those
like Chombo, Made, Border Gezi and the so-called war veterans (and not even all
of them support the chaos), Zimbabweans no longer have any faith in the party's
bizarre rhetoric. In truth, this is a sort of war and the more support the hard
core loses, the more desperate and daft its rhetoric becomes - which loses them
more support still. ZANU-PF has lost sight of the fact that propaganda works
only if government works, but with government failing to meet even the basic
requirements of civilised society, the propaganda is little more than wasted
effort.

That means that Dr Chombo's plea for
people to resettle themselves was said in desperation more than hope. Yes, there
are land hungry people out there, but no, they won't be found in anything like
the numbers ZANU-PF claims. But it goes even further. Even the land hungry are
unlikely to heed Chombo's plaintive call because they don't believe him - and
that means the only people who'll move in any numbers will be hard core
supporters who're ordered onto the farms. And, as everyone knows, their numbers
are diminishing at a spectacular, and pleasing, rate.

But that doesn't mean that it is time
to relax. With ZANU-PF in a corner, the renewed violence of the last few weeks
is likely to be taken to higher levels still. The reason for this is simple if
not comforting. For the first time in 20 years, the ruling party finds itself on
the losing side. It has become increasingly desperate - and it finds itself with
only one policy it can use to retain power over a disenchanted electorate. That
policy is violence, which hopefully means the crisis is coming to a head.

A FARM manager at Dawnmill Farm in
Bindura, Mr Keith McGaw was left with a fractured skull and received 18 stitches
to the head following yet another brutal attack on a farmer by so called war
veterans.

Mr McGaw was rushed to Glendale
Hospital from where he was transferred to the Avenues Clinic's Intensive Care
Unit in Harare.

In an interview soon after being moved
from the ICU, Mr McGaw said he had seen children herding cattle and goats along
a busy road at the farm as he was passing by and told them that it was dangerous
as an accident could occur. On his way back he said he had again warned the
children who, apparently, were herding cattle belonging to the people who
invaded the farm where he is employed. They told him to go and talk to the "war
vets" at their camp.

Attacked

He said it was while attempting to talk
to the "war veterans" at their base camp that he was attacked.

Mr McGaw said, "I was sitting on my
motorbike speaking to them. They said this was Zimbabwe and they could do
whatever they wanted and whenever they wanted."

He said one of them suddenly struck him
with an object from behind and the rest of them joined in assaulting him. He was
hit across the face and fell from his bike. While on the ground he was kicked
all over the body until he fell unconscious.

He said a woman who was in the "war
vets" camp came and poured some water over him.

"She took me to the road and pointed me
in the direction on my security boom where there is a communication
radio."

It is understood that one of the
assailants armed with an axe aimed a glancing blow to his head causing blood to
gush out. The wound required 18 stitches.

Mr McGaw said all he had wanted was for
the livestock to be removed off the road. He refuted a report in the
pro-government Herald, which alleged that he had threatened the war veterans
with his firearm. He said he had no weapon with him at the time of the
attack.

Incensed by the brutality of the attack
the farm workers descended on the "war veterans" camp and chased them off the
farm but they later returned.

Arrested

Following the clashes between the "war
veterans" and farm workers, 14 farm workers were arrested.

By Thursday afternoon four of
the 14 farm workers had been released while the other 10 were taken to court on
charges of assaulting "war veterans".

Two men from the "war veterans" gang of
six that attacked Mr McGaw had also been arrested by the time of going to
press.

The farm, according the owner Mr Ian
Miller, has not been listed for compulsory acquisition. At the time of going to
press about 96 illegal occupiers were at his farm pegging the land that is yet
to be prepared for this season's cropping in the presence of police.

Recently war veterans in Karoi attacked
and seriously injured Mr Marshall Roper as they tried to prevent him from
planting his tobacco crop. The farm had not been listed for compulsory
acquisition.

Mugabe goes whites
bashing

ZIMBABWE'S beleaguered President Robert
Mugabe this week launched yet another vitriolic attack on the country's white
community saying he would revoke the reconcilitation policy and put on trial for
genocide his opponents in the 1970s liberation war.

Addressing Zanu-PF members in Harare,
Mr Mugabe claimed whites had rejected the hand of reconciliation he extended to
them at independence in 1980 by aligning themselves with the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) which he accuses of trying to return the country to
colonialism.

Mr Mugabe was apparently angered by
unprecedented moves led MDC which, this week, tabled a motion in Parliament to
impeach him for wilfully flouting the constitution and gross
misconduct.

He said his ruling Zanu-PF would put on
trial those who fought on the side of former Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith
on the same lines as the Nazi war tribunals in Europe. "In Europe they are still
charging people for the Nazi war crimes; what can stop us doing the same here,"
Mugabe said.

"Ian Smith and his fellow whites
committed genocide during our liberation war. We buried hundreds of cadres at
places like Nyadzonia and Chimoio in Mozambique and other places who were killed
by the white imperialist regime. They will stand trial for their crimes," he
said adding that his government was looking for an effective way to revoke the
reconciliation policy.

"They must take note that the Coltarts,
Aurets and the rest of them will not be free from arrest, "Mr Mugabe said
referring to David Coltart and Mike Auret, both MPs of the MDC.

Meanwhile media reports said Mr Smith,
currently in the British capital, London on a speaking engagement, dared Mr
Mugabe to put him on trial saying he would welcome the chance to tell the world
Mugabe was a gangster who had plunged the country into anarchy.

Bank warns on economic
decline

THE speed and manner in which land
reform is undertaken will determine whether economic decline accelerates in 2001
or whether the economy bottoms out in preparation for a recovery in
2001.

According to Standard Chartered Bank,
the other main influences to drive economic performance in 2001 will be
commodity prices, climatic conditions in 2000/2001-rainfall season and
government's economic policy.

The bank said the economy stagnated
during 1999 with preliminary estimates suggesting GDP was barely changed and
initial forecasts pointing to strong output in commercial agriculture this year
with official figures showing a surge in small-scale production of maize and
cotton and an increase of at least 15% in flue cured tobacco volumes.

In mid year, the Commercial Farmers
Union estimated an 18% rise in the value of commercial output but because costs
have been rising far more rapidly than prices in real terms the bank said
production was estimated to fall 13% in 2000.

This forecast, according to the
Standard Chartered Bank, has since been revised, partly taking into account
increased Zimbabwe dollar revenue arising from devaluation. As a result
Large-scale commercial production, at current prices is forecast to rise 28%
this year while real output falls some 10%.

The bank said although this would be
offset to some extent by increased smallholder production, the overall effect is
likely to be a decline of at least 10% in agricultural value added in 2000,
which would knock about 2% off Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

It said 20001 tobacco crop will be
smaller due to a combination of factors such as uncertainty in respect to farm
production costs, lower average prices and difficulties in sourcing key inputs
such as diesel, foreign exchange, coal and bank loans. These are expected to
result in at least 20% reduction of tobacco output in the coming
season.

Already the Zimbabwe Tobacco
Association indicated that there is a shortage of coal as Wankie Colliery's
performance is well below expectation this year. On average deliveries of coal
were 50% down between April and September this year.

On commodity prices, Standard Chartered
bank said Zimbabwe as an importer of oil has been hard hit by the steep rise in
fuel price, while the market prices for its two main exports, tobacco and gold
continued to be depressed.

As a result, Zimbabwe's terms of trade
have deteriorated markedly, although this has been offset, to some extent, by
firmer prices of nickel, cotton and sugar.

It is expected that there will be 5%
GDP decline driven largely by reduced output in commercial agriculture, mining
,tourism and manufacturing while the retail sector volumes will also fall.

Rural councils face
dwindling revenues

RURAL District Councils (RDC), most of
them dogged by perennial financial problems, now face imminent collapse as they
grapple with a dwindling revenue base because commercial farmers who contribute
a greater part to their coffers through taxes, are being systematically
dispossessed of their farms under government's controversial land reform
programme.

Commercial farmers have been accused by
some government officials of reneging on tax payments to RDC saying they are
breaking the law.

But the farmers have pointed out it was
becoming increasingly difficult for them to continue paying the taxes when they
are not being productive, as "war veterans" occupying their farms and are
persistently disrupting farming operations preventing them from generating the
revenue they need to pay the RDCs.

Some RDC sources said the councils were
in financial dire straits because commercial farmers were no longer paying unit
tax to the councils. The sources said some commercial farmers' productive
capacities had been greatly eroded as a result of the uncertainties created by
the government as it continues to publish lists of properties for compulsory
acquisition.

"There is no way that farmers can pay
unit tax to the council when there is no production on the farm. At the other
end RDCs have been relying heavily on the unit tax from the farmers and now that
this tax is no longer being paid it means their revenue base is now limited to
the more uncollectable sources," said the sources.

Critics of the controversial "fast
track" resettlement exercise say the manner in which it is being implemented
cannot economically empower its intended beneficiaries. They are convinced it is
in fact designed to ensure the political survival of those in power ahead of the
2002 presidential elections.

They said there was no hope that those
resettled are going to pay unit tax to the councils, as these were people being
moved from the communal areas where no such taxes are levied.

In the meantime, most of newly
resettled farmers will be looking to government to provide them with all the
necessary inputs for them to be able to plant crops in the ensuing
season.

The land identification and allocation
is mostly being done without adequate involvement of the RDCs. The planning
stage of resettlement is a critical one for RDCs, as this would enable them to
plan how they would raise revenue from the resettled farmers.

Many of RDCs are anxious that they are
not prejudiced as a result of the resettlement exercise and would want the new
farmers to remain commercial since they are now in commercial farming areas.

Zimbabweans see
through Mugabe's land hoax

ACCORDING to an opinion poll called
"Political opinion and the crisis of Zimbabwe" published by South Africa's Helen
Suzman Foundation last week, Robert Mugabe's land invasion tactic has been an
unprecedented flop. The report states that 64% of people believe that land
invasions have nothing to do with land reform - and that even 31% of ZANU-PF's
own supporters fall into this camp.

The report, compiled by the HSF's
Professor Bill Johnson, says that "opinion is extremely hostile to the farm
invasions and that only among the radical core of ZANU-PF is there a majority
that believes they will lead to land reform - so even there nearly a third of
ZANU-PF supporters believe the invasions have nothing to do with genuine land
reform."

And when respondents were asked whether
so-called war veterans should be made to leave farms immediately, the results
were unambiguous. Targeting traditional ZANU-PF supporters, the poll revealed
that 66% of all Shona speakers, 64% of communal farmers, 57% of respondents in
Mashonaland Central, 63% in Mash West and a staggering 75% in Mash East said
they wanted the war vets off the land immediately. "This suggests that even in
the heartlands of ZANU-PF support there was considerable irritation and
resentment of the farm invasions which, once the possibility of the restoration
of the rule of law was raised, is quick to express itself," the report
stated.

The poll, which was conducted by Probe
Market Research, an affiliate of Gallup International, also found that a mere 6%
of the population believed land to be the most important problem facing
Zimbabwe.

It also found that fully 70% of
Zimbabweans believe that war veterans should be prosecuted for the crimes they
have committed on farms. Even among ruling party supporters, the figure was a
surprising 39%, somewhat diminished by 89% of MDC supporters who advocate
prosecution.

Among communal land farmers, 67%
believed that prosecuting war veterans for their crimes was a good idea, while
in Mashonaland East a staggering 81% advocated taking them to court. Mashonaland
East proved often to be the most vociferously anti-war vet province in the
country.

The HSF report concluded by stating
that: "…while the government may have embarked on its fast track resettlement
programme as a desperate gamble to regain popular support it seems most unlikely
that it can now achieve such a recovery with this issue. Not only does the land
issue remain anchored near the bottom of the electorate's critical concerns, but
it has actually fallen further. Moreover, the stronger the line suggested
against the war veterans the more the people liked it."

Hang 'em high

INTERESTINGLY the Gallup poll published
last week in Zimbabwe reveals a remarkable hardening of attitudes among a
population long considered too generous towards poor governance. The poll,
commissioned by the Helen Suzman Foundation, reveals that "Overall our
respondents opted to take tough action against the war veterans by 70% to
21%."

The report went on to say that even
among ZANU-PF's hard core there is a serious split with 39% of respondents
wanting to see the so-called war vets charged for their crimes.

Interestingly, communal land farmers
also opted for strong action against the invading ex-combatants. 67% of them
said they should be charged and punished as against a paltry 24% who said the
invasions were justified and understandable. "The stronger the line suggested
against the war veterans, the more people liked it," said the HSF
report.

A similar phenomenon was seen when
asked whether President Mugabe should be allowed to continue, whether he should
be offered immunity in return for resigning, or whether he should be impeached
and then tried for his crimes. Over half the respondents opted for the harshest
option, preferring to see their president in court.

And even among the small remaining
ZANU-PF hard core contingent, there was a massive split on the issue. "… the
ZANU-PF bloc broke down the middle with just under half wanting the president to
carry on as now and 44% envisaging either immunity for resignation or that the
president might be put on trial even if he resigns."

Understandably in Matabeleland, where
there is still strong resentment towards Mugabe for the Gukurahundi Massacres
committed in the 80s by his notorious Fifth Brigade, respondents voted
overwhelmingly for putting the president in the dock. Fully 65% said he should
face trial and a mere 6% thought he could carry on until the next presidential
election.

Analysts suggest that given an
unforgiving national mood and the fact that respondents opted for the harshest
actions against both war vets and Mugabe, ZANU-PF's ability to salvage
credibility must be severely limited.

An unnecessary gap

STATING that the situation in Zimbabwe
today was clearly "one of insipient revolt", Professor Bill Johnson of the Helen
Suzman Foundation claimed that ZANU-PF could count on a mere 13% of the
electorate if an election were to be called today. The figure indicates a
complete collapse of the ruling party's support base - even in the communal land
strong holds it previously dominated. The opposition MDC, he said, could count
on over 60% of the vote.

"The mood is very strongly negative,"
said Johnson, who said that ZANU-PF was "still crumbling."

Meanwhile the MDC "clearly has the wind
in their sails. They're the fashionable party," Johnson told a packed seminar in
Harare, adding that Zimbabwe was on the verge of major change.

The report compiled by the HSF states
that a shocking 37% of the electorate is either planning to leave, thinking
about leaving or would leave if they had the means to do so. "This is a sign of
dreadful crisis," the report concluded.

But attitudes to white immigration,
given that whites constitute perhaps one per cent of Zimbabwe's population, were
even more interesting. Proving that ZANU-PF's anti-white propaganda machine that
cranks out racist rhetoric aimed at demeaning white Zimbabweans has been
ineffective, only 3% of respondents thought whites should leave the country and
"good riddance" to them.

"Even communal farmers, who might have
expected to benefit from whites leaving, showed an 80% majority regretting white
departures and even in the ZANU-PF heartland of Mashonaland Central only a third
took a hostile or dismissive attitude towards white immigration and two thirds
regretted it," claimed the report.

Mbeki slates Mugabe

SOUTH African president, Mr Thabo
Mbeki, last week slated his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe for lawlessness
and seizing farms. Speaking to the South African Foreign Correspondents
Association, Mr Mbeki said that Mugabe's approach to land seizure was
wrong.

"This conflict is wrong. This approach,
this occupation of farms, the seizure of farms, the disregard for the law, these
things are wrong, these things must be addressed," Mr Mbeki said.

And on the day that an opinion poll in
Zimbabwe showed Mugabe's popularity at an all time low, the South African
president said it was up to Zimbabweans to decide "whether the elected president
of Zimbabwe continues to be the elected president of Zimbabwe".

But Mbeki stopped short of withdrawing his much
criticised support for the beleaguered Zimbabwean leader. 'We have to battle to
avoid a collapse in Zimbabwe,'' Mbeki said, promising to continue providing
electricity, fuel and assistance in transporting goods through South African
ports, even if that helped Mugabe remain in power. "We have not proceeded from a
position that our principal task was to criticize," he said

HARARE, December 4 (Xinhuanet) -- Zimbabwean war veterans have
warned that they will give the country's judges 14 days to resign,
following recent rulings on the land issue, a newspaper reported
on Monday. According to The Herald, Deputy Chairman of the War Veterans
for Harare Province Mike Moyo said on Sunday that the war veterans
are now declaring a war on the country's judges, whom are accused
of making their own laws which seek to reverse the gains of the
liberation struggle. He said the judges will be removed from the bench by force if
they do not resign. "We are the custodians of the people's revolution and we will
not allow these colonial and racist judges to continue to serve
white colonial interests in Zimbabwe under the guise of the so-
called rule of law," Moyo said. The Zimbabwean government has over the past few months clashed
with the courts and white commercial farmers over the occupation
of land by liberation war veterans, who have since this February
been occupying the land which they say was seized by colonial
settlers from their ancestors. In some cases, the courts issued orders compelling the
government to evict the war veterans from the farms, but the
occupations continued. The country's traditional chiefs should lead all the peasants
in the fight to reclaim their land, Moyo added.